Civility

If you are K. Daniel Glover and you are taking money to be the editor of National Journal‘s Technology Daily and the author of its Beltway Blogroll, isn’t it reasonable to assume that you know something about blogs and bloggers?

Apparently not. First, the Beltway Blogroll is, in fact, a blog, not a blogroll, and its content is essentially daily selections from the feed with minimal original content. The current post is “Danny” bemoaning the mean bloggers for “attacking” him over his piece in the New York Times. Apparently it doesn’t occur to him that he should have used more due diligence and fact checking before he impugned peoples’ ethics.

It may come as a surprise to “Danny”, but Google works on blogs, and if you have questions about what someone did or said, you can search through their archives to find out when they wrote about things, and whether they mentioned any outside interests. It’s really simple to do, even paid professionals can learn to use it.

Of all of the people cited in the graphic that was prepared with the piece, only one, Patrick Hynes, went to work for a campaign before announcing what he was doing, and that was for the McCain campaign which is just ramping up for 2008. Hynes announced his new position because of pressure from other bloggers, demonstrating that blogtopia™ ^{[skippy the bush kangaroo]} is a self-correcting mechanism.

“Danny” was really unhappy about the way Roger Ailes, the good one, and Steve Gilliard tore into him over the Times piece, which caused Steve to tell him to get a spine if he wants to blog.

Atrios made him Wanker of the Day, but Echidne and Mustang Bobby were much nicer to him.

“Danny” didn’t have the courtesy to check his “facts”, so it is unrealistic for him to expect any courtesy in return. If you act like a jerk, you will be treated like a jerk.